April 25, 2021

Love with Action and Truth – 1 John 3:16-24

26 minutes

Today’s listener question is about “deeds of the flesh” which includes anger and sensuality, and how perplexing it is. “Is sex not meant to be enjoyable? And what about when we just can’t help but get angry at a situation? Am I not allowed to be mad that I am being mistreated or something?” Tune in to find out what we think about this text and this question.

For this episode’s passage, we queered 1 John 3:16-24 and it feels good knowing that the salvation we learned growing up is different from what we’ve come to learn now. It’s a relief, truth be told. We also dive deeper into what it means to lay your life down for someone else and how the passage calls us to continue to do the work and help those in need.

Key takeaways:

Life updates from Brian and how Queer Theology helps him throughout his journey [0:39]

Fr. Shay and Minneapolis [5:55]

A listener question about Galatians 5:19-21 [10:13]

How sensuality is translated and diving deeper into “anger” [11:08]

Sensuality is all over the scripture [13:55]

How the scripture helps get clarification [16:05]

Queering the text: 1 John 3:16-24 [16:55]

How different this scripture means from how we were taught salvation growing up [18:06]

What it means to lay down our lives [20:35]

What we don’t want our listeners to take away from this passage [22:51]

How shame and guilt is addressed in this text [24:25]

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If you’d like to be featured in future episodes, email your question or Bible passage suggestion to [email protected].

1 John 3:16-24

This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. But if someone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but refuses to help—how can the love of God dwell in a person like that?

Little children, let’s not love with words or speech but with action and truth. This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and reassure our hearts in God’s presence. Even if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and knows all things. Dear friends, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence in relationship to God. We receive whatever we ask from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. This is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love each other as he commanded us. Those who keep his commandments dwell in God and God dwells in them. This is how we know that he dwells in us, because of the Spirit he has given us.

Photo by Marco Bianchetti

The post Love with Action and Truth – 1 John 3:16-24 appeared first on Queer Theology.

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